Lives in Spirit: Precursors and Dilemmas of a Secular Western Mysticism

by Harry T. Hunt

Lives in Spirit explores the dynamic conflicts that both energized and distorted the spiritual development of key precursor figures of a contemporary secular or "this-worldly" mysticism. With its historical roots in the early Gnostics and Plotinus, this characteristically Western spirituality re-emerges with the secularization and loss of traditional religious belief of modernity. The lives, works, and direct experiences of Nietzsche, Emerson, Thoreau, Jung, Heidegger, Gurdjieff, Crowley, and contemporary feminist mysticism are considered in terms of transpersonal psychology (Almaas), the sociology of mysticism (Weber and Troeltsch), and contemporary psychoanalysis (Winnicott, Bion, Kohut). Spiritual or essential experience is seen as an inherent form of human intelligence, which while potentially and even increasingly impacted by personal dynamics and social crisis, is not reducible to them.

Genres: Psychology

369 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2003

Reviews

[- Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written engaging book that I’ve read from beginning to end, and it’s quite unusual for me, because I often put books down half read. The few last chapters about feminist mysticism, we’re particularly interesting, giving to the pioneers, root interest in mythology, given the fact that the neuroplasticity of women are more spiritually attuned than men.

If the core argument of the book called faith of the fatherless: the psychology of atheism” was put together in a methodological and academic layout, the result would be this book, which depicts the same notion of faith, versus religious dogmas, following pioneers in the west such as Nietzsche, Jung, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Crowley, and a most recent rock musician, following their troubles, and deeply torturing personal history.

Having extensive reading about some of these figures, I find the book to be very engaging, and can be regarded as some kind of bibliography, providing a contextual and psychoanalytical point of view of how the secularization of mysticism spirituality comes to be. Starting from Nietzsche and his long-term impact over the west, in term of the “individuation speech” that was develop later by Maslow and it’s economic undertone. Passing by Jung, and Crowley with their ever lasting culty influence.